Get Out of the City: Operation Exodus

The first horde came from the East, but soon it didn’t matter. Hundreds of zombies from all directions were soon running directly at us. Shots rang out and zombies began dropping in a red haze. Incendiary Ammo came from behind as Molotov’s flew over the wall and smashed into the trees igniting the forest. Soon there was no need for night vision goggles as fire erupted into the dark night.

A siren wailed and my new companion cried out, “Fall back,” then to me, “follow me if you want to live.”

We ran down the catwalk and slid down a pole into the bowels of the fortress. Everyone was running. Two men stood guard at a double set of doors yelling for everyone to get in. It was too fast for me to take in where I was going. We dashed through tunnels lit by amber balls of light around the arched ceiling, then we turned and the light was no longer amber, but green. Then another turn and there was no light at all, but we kept running. The sounds of our feet echoed off the walls. How many of us were there? We sounded like an Army.

Two more sets of double doors and we were in a large room, all of us huddling together in silence.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“This is the fallout shelter, mate,” he said.

An uneasy feeling came over me. I hope there was another way out of here than the way we came. Should the fortress become compromised we could be staring at an uncertain death.

The door closed behind the last of us. As though a switch had been flipped the lights came on in the room. It was much larger than I had anticipated. Solid steel walls towered up approximately eight feet tall and perhaps 100 square feet, with three doors on the opposite wall.

“Alright men,” said a tall, weathered man, a scar down his right cheek from temple to chin. “The horde you just fought off was just the beginning. Even now, what’s left of them is crawling towards our walls. They will make it in before long. Our orders are to go from here to the west coast –”

There was a commotion among us as we realized this massive undertaking.

“Who is that?” I asked. He shook his head without looking at me.

Scarface raised his hand and the commotion dyed down.

“We will travel toward Portland, Oregon…on foot. Upon arrival we will board one of the vessels in port and continue to our final destination. It will take us 40 day of travel, thus the unofficial term Operation Exodus. We will remain here for the remainder of the night and rest; there will be little time for it where we are going. At seven hundred hours we will take the final branch of this tunnel out, it will lead us to Detroit, where it ends.” He paused.

“The virus has mutated. Intelligence shows that over time the undead will start to adapt to their environment. They will learn to climb, run, swim. They will become smarter, faster and more deadly.

“The outbreak occurred in several cities across the globe almost simultaneously. We cannot be sure exactly how each city fell, but we are certain that they fell. We have limited contact with other teams and must be on the lookout for the military. They are not our friends, people. They will eliminate us if we are seen crossing. Are there any questions?”

“What happens when we run out of supplies?”

“There are safe houses across the route that have been erected and supplied for our crossing by hundreds of teams along the route. With our security measures in place, they will be free from looters and the undead,” Scarface explained.

“What is our final destination?”

“That is classified information,” Scarface hardly reacted. “We cannot compromise the mission. We do not know what the undead retain from their former lives. Some of you may not survive the crossing. You will learn of its location when we arrive there. That is all for the night, get some rest, and be ready to move out.”

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

Related

Post navigation

4 thoughts on “Get Out of the City: Operation Exodus”

This is a really great read I have stumbled across. I will make sure to read the whole thing when I get a chance.

Whilst reading, I found one thing I wanted to comment on: “Incendiary Ammo came from behind as Molotov’s flew over the wall..”

This sentence caught my eye because of the word “as” in the middle. Often writers will say Thing A is happening as Thing B is happening. Or they will say, Joe got up to leave the office, heading to a restaurant for lunch.

The AS and the HEADING in those sentences imply two things happening at exactly the same time. It’s something I see often and I think that it often looks good to writers and not so good to readers.

The alternative is: “Incendiary Ammo came from behind and Molotov’s flew over the wall” .. implying the molotov came just after the incendiary fire rather than exactly at the same time. Also, “Joe got up to leave the office and headed to a restaurant” generally sounds better, in my opinion.

Hope that is something useful to think about, and sorry for the random comment!

Terrii..You know how much I like your writing and your characters so I won’t go on about that here…I am not much of a “zombie” reader…normally… But, I have to say you certainly have a talent for story-telling. I am really enjoying this almost epic struggle..!! Hope your other “project” is coming along well. I get the impression that you write as you think or “on the fly..”. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I consider it to be a very honest, revealing method. Any errors that may occur are usually not serious ones (coming from a competent writer..) and small errors or issues of construction are easily fixed. Don’t worry too much about these things—If you are writing this piece for future publication, then this is a draft….
I am eagerly awaiting ‘Kodiak..’
Howard